Category: Software

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Removing Duplicates in MS Outlook

A recent Arlington, Virginia, client found herself with duplicate contacts in Outlook. Microsoft Outlook can easily get duplicate emails, contacts, or calender records if you have a problem with importing, exporting, or syncing.

First Backup Your Outlook

Before doing anything, you should be sure to backup your Outlook file in case you mess anything up. You can find your outlook.pst file usually in the folder such as:
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Copy the .pst files to another directory for you to put back there in case you destroy the original files.

Then Remove Your Duplicates

Duplicate Remover For Outlook was the software that we used to remove the thousands of duplicates that were in the Outlook file. It costs $24 for a single account. They have a free 30-day trial that will only delete 10 dups, but it shows you how the program works. It can remove duplicate contacts, notes, tasks, journals and calendar items.  It also has multiple options for how to handle duplicates: deleting to the deleted folder, deleting permanently, flagging, copying, and moving the duplicate items.

If you find that you have lots of duplicates in Outlook, the $24 will be well spent on the Duplicate Remover software.

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WiFi Finder Software for Windows

inSSIDer: Wi-Fi network scanner is free open source software for finding WiFi networks from a Windows XP or Vista computer. It is great for testing wireless network signal strengths, doing WiFi security checks for open access points, and determining what might be a good free channel to choose for your WiFi to have less interference.

Typically people have used software called NetStumbler. Unfortunately NetStumbler hasn’t been updated lately. Thankfully the folks at MetaGeek decided to make and give us inSSIDer for free.

The term inSSIDer is a play on words, with “SSID” being the term for the name of a WiFi network. If you need to find or analyze WiFi signals, inSIDDer is a great free tool.

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Antivirus XP 2008 Is Bogus

A recent Sterling, Virginia customer got hit by a fake warning that her computer had been infected by a virus. But it was just a pop-up browser window that, when clicked, actually installed malware on her computer. To add insult to injury, the malware installed is called Antivirus XP 2008. So you think it’s there to help you when in fact it IS the infection.

Antivirus XP 2008 shows a list of files that it claims are infected on your computer. See that the icons used are the same as those used by Windows. If you register the “anti-virus” software in an attempt to fix your computer, the bad guys will have your credit card information.

On other computers, I have seen Antivirus XP 2008 installed on the Windows Desktop background so that your wallpaper background always gave you a warning.

This has become a common computer problem. It is an easy scam to fall for because it looks very close to a real Windows warning.

This is an effective social engineering scam because people are scared of viruses and have grown accustomed to following any computer-generated prompts to remove them.

For this particular computer, I booted into Windows Safe mode and ran Malwarebyte’s Anti-malware program which is free for a couple of weeks use. Luckily the infection could be removed. In some cases, the malware can actually take over all administrator rights to the computer and rewrite the operating system to the extent that the only real alternative is to save your personal files and reinstall Windows.